


If I Love You, Is That A Fact Or A Weapon?

by redbrunja



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-16
Updated: 2012-12-16
Packaged: 2017-11-21 06:38:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/594617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redbrunja/pseuds/redbrunja
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce leaves New York and they send Natasha to bring him back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If I Love You, Is That A Fact Or A Weapon?

Bruce leaves New York and they send Natasha to bring him back. Natasha, with her perpetually flat expression, fear lurking far back in her eyes. He left New York for the express purpose of not seeing the way she looked at him.  
  
 _Do you ever suspect you turned into your father without realizing?_  Bruce asked Tony once, voice light, false.  
  
 _No,_  Tony says, means  _yes._  
  
Natasha never forgets what Bruce is capable of. He likes that about her.  
  
Betty was never afraid of him. She was never afraid of Bruce, even when he was ripping everything they'd build together apart, because he was eager and sure and knew best.  
  
Natasha is standing on the docks, waiting for him when he stumbles off the cargo ship in Cape Town. She's tan. She might even be getting freckles. He flinches when he see her and she looks like she's won something.  
  
 _Don't you have better things to do with your time?_  he asks, squinting against the bright sunlight.  
  
She smiles, shows too many teeth.  
  
 _No,_  she says sweetly. He thinks of the Indian girl she used to lure him to their first meeting. He imagines a round-faced girl-child with red hair, sent after bigger, meaner, stronger targets, over and over and over again. He tries to picture that girl afraid, but all he sees in his mind is tiny, chubby fingers wrapped around a trigger.  
  
Natasha Romanoff is afraid of him - that shouldn't make him feel special.  
  
 _What do you do to relax?_  he asks, sitting next to her on the airplane. He doesn't recall agreeing to return, but here he is. Bruce fiddles with his glasses.  _For fun?_  
  
She curls up next to the window, boneless as a cat.  _I never relax,_  she tells him. To all appearances, she's asleep for the majority of the time they're over the Atlantic.  
  
Bruce watches her, and feels a prickle under his skin that has nothing to do with The Other Guy and everything to do with being his father's son.


End file.
